noun

• A small deerlike mammal with small tusks, typically nocturnal and found in the tropical rainforests of Africa and southern Asia.

  Also called mouse deer

  Family Tragulidae: genera Tragulus (three Asian species) and Hyemoschus (one African species)

  ‘Ecologically, they range from forest dwellers, such as wild pigs and chevrotains, to dominant large herbivores on grasslands.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘In the Duala headdresses, the animal is an antelope, perhaps the African water chevrotain that was once common in the Delta and the Wouri estuary.’
  • ‘The parallel antelope masking forms of the Ijebu Agbo society are associated with a water spirit of Ijo derivation based on the African water chevrotain.’